How do you define yourself | Lizzie Velasquez | TEDxAustinWomen

In a time when beauty is defined by supermodels; success, by wealth; and fame, by your number of social media 'fans', Lizzie Velasquez asks the question: How do you define yourself?
Lizzie shares with us, what a rare medical syndrome has taught her about love for family and for the self; about courage in the face of cruelty; and about being the architects of our own lives.
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

I'm really, really, really
excited to be here.

I kind of want to tell you

a little bit more of the -
I don't want to say basics -

because we really don't know
anything about my syndrome.

I was born with this very rare syndrome,

that only two other people in the world
including myself, that we know of, have.

Basically what this syndrome causes,
is that I cannot gain weight.

Yes, it does sound as good as it is.

(Laughter)

I could eat absolutely
whatever I want, whenever I want

and I won't really gain any weight.

I'm going to be 25 in March,

and I've never weighed over
about 64 pounds in my entire life.

When I was in college, I hid -

well, I didn't 'hide' it,
everyone knew it was there -

but it was a giant tub
of Twinkies, donuts, chips, Skittles,

and my roommate would say,
"I could hear you at 12:30 am,

reaching under your bed to get food."

But I'm like, "You know what?
It's alright, I can do these things!"

Because there are benefits
to this syndrome.

There are benefits
to not being able to gain weight.

There are benefits
to being visually impaired.

There are benefits
to being kind of really small.

A lot of people think,

"Lizzie, how in the world
are you saying there are benefits

when you can only see
out of one eye?"

Well, let me tell you
what the benefits are

because they are great.

I wear contacts--conTACT.
Half-off conTACTS.

(Laughter)

When I wear my reading glasses:
half-off prescription.

If somebody is annoying me,
being rude:

Stand on my right side.

(Laughter)

It's like you're not even there.
I don't even know you're standing there.

Right now, if I stand like this,
I have no clue

that there's this whole side of the room.

Also, being small,
I am very willing to volunteer myself

to go to Weight Watchers
or to some gym, and say,

"Hi, I'm Lizzie.
I will be your poster child.

Put my face on whatever
you need, and I will say,

'Hi! I used this program.
Look how well it worked.'"

(Laughter)

Even though there are amazing things
that have come from this syndrome,

there are also things that have been
very, very difficult, as you can imagine.

Growing up, I was raised 150% normally.

I was my parents' first child.

And when I was born,
the doctors told my mom,

"Your daughter has no
amniotic fluid around her.

At all."

So when I was born, it was a miracle
that I came out screaming.

The doctors told my parents,

"We just want to warn you:
Expect your daughter to never be able

to talk, walk, crawl, think,
or do anything by herself."

Now, as first-time parents,
you would think that my parents would say,

"Oh no. Why?
Why are we getting our first child

with all these unknown problems?"

But that's not what they did.

The first thing they told the doctor was,

"We want to see her,
and we are going to take her home

and love her, and raise her
to the best of our abilities."

And that's what they did.

I credit pretty much everything
that I've done in my life to my parents.

My dad is here with me today,
and my mom is at home watching.

Hi mom!
(Laughter)

She's recovering from surgery.

She has been the glue
that's held our family together,

and she's given me the strength
to see that she's going through so much,

but she has this fighting spirit
that she's instilled in me,

so that I have proudly been able
to stand in front of people and say,

"You know what?
I've had a really difficult life.

But that's okay."

That's okay. Things have been scary,
things have been tough.

One of the biggest things

that I had to deal with growing up

was something I'm pretty sure

every single one of us in this room
has dealt with before.

Can you guess what that is?

It starts with a 'B'.
Can you guys guess it?

Audience: Boys!
Lizzie: Boys?

(Laughter)

Bullying!

(Laughter)

I know what you all are thinking.

(Laughter)

Why can't I sit here with them?
(Laughter)

I had to deal with bullying a lot,
but as I said, I was raised very normally,

so when I started kindergarten,

I had absolutely no idea
that I looked different.

No clue.

I couldn't see that I looked
different from other kids.

I think of it as a big slap
of reality for a five year-old,

because I went in to school the first day,
decked-out in Pocahontas gear.

I was ready!

(Laughter)

I went in with my backpack

that looked like a turtle shell
because it was bigger than me,

and I walked up
to a little girl and smiled at her,

and she looked up at me
like I was a monster,

like I was the scariest thing
she had ever seen in her life.

My first reaction was,

"She is really rude.

(Laughter)

I am a fun kid,
and she's the one missing out.

So I'll just go over here
and play with blocks. Or boys."

(Laughter)

(Lizzie laughs)

I thought the day would get better,
and unfortunately, it didn't.

The day got worse and worse.
A lot of people just wanted to have

absolutely nothing to do with me,
and I couldn't understand why.

Why? What did I do?
I didn't do anything to them!

In my mind I was still a really cool kid.

I had to go home and ask my parents,

"What's wrong with me?

What did I do? Why don't they like me?"

They sat me down and said,

"Lizzie, the only thing
different about you

is that you're smaller
than the other kids.

You have this syndrome,
but it's not going to define who you are."

They said,
"Go to school, pick your head up, smile,

continue to be yourself,
and people will see

that you're just like them."

And so that's what I did.

I want you to think, and ask yourself
this in your head, right now:

What defines you?

Who are you?

Is it where you come from?
Is it your background? Is it your friends?

What is it?

What defines who you are as a person?

It's taken me a very long time
to figure out what defines me.

For so long I thought what defined me

was my outer appearance.
I thought that my little tiny legs,

and my little arms,
and my little face were ugly.

I thought I was disgusting.

I hated when I'd wake up in the morning
when I was going to middle school,

and would be looking in the mirror
getting ready, and thinking,

"Can I just scrub this syndrome off?

It would make my life so much easier
if I could just scrub it off.

I could look like other kids;
I wouldn't have to buy clothes

that had Dora the Explorer on them.
I wouldn't have to buy stuff

that was 'Bedazzled', when I was trying
to be like the cool kids."

I would wish, and pray, and hope,
and do whatever I could

so I would wake up
in the morning and be different,

and I wouldn't have to deal
with these struggles.

It's what I wanted every single day,

and every single day I was disappointed.

I have an amazing
support system around me,

who never pity me, who are there
to pick me up if I'm sad,

who are there to laugh with me
during the good times,

and they taught me that,
even though I have this syndrome,

even though things are hard,
I can't let that define me.

My life was put into my hands,
just like your lives are put into yours.

You are the person
in the front seat of your car.

You are the one who decides

whether your car goes down
a bad path, or a good path.

You are the one
who decides what defines you.

Now let me tell you:
it could be really hard to figure out

what defines you,
because there were times

when I'd get so annoyed
and frustrated, and say:

"I don't care what defines me!"

When I was in high school I found a video,

unfortunately, that somebody posted of me,

labeling me the world's ugliest woman.

There were over four million views
to this video; eight seconds long,

no sound, thousands
of comments; people saying,

"Lizzie, please - please -
just do the world a favor,

put a gun to your head,
and kill yourself."

Think about that,
if people told you that,

if strangers told you this.

I cried my eyes out of course,
and I was ready to fight back

and something
kind of clicked in my head,

and I thought,
"I'm just going to leave it alone."

I started realizing
that my life is in my hands.

I could either choose
to make this really good,

or I could choose
to make this really bad.

I could be grateful,
and open my eyes

and realize the things that I do have,

and make those the things that define me.

I can't see out of one eye,
but I can see out of the other.

I might get sick a lot,
but I have really nice hair.

(Laughter)

(Audience) You do, you do!

Thanks.

You guys are like
the best little section right here.

(Laughter)

(Lizzie laughs)
You made me lose my train of thought!

(Laughter)

Okay... where was I?

Audience: Your hair!

Hair! Hair. Ok, ok, thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

So I could either choose
to be happy or I could choose

to be upset with what I have
and still kind of complain about it,

but then I started realizing:

Am I going to let the people
who called me a monster define me?

Am I going to let the people who said,
"Kill it with fire!" define me?

No; I'm going to let my goals,
and my success, and my accomplishments

be the things that define me -
Not my outer appearance,

not the fact that I'm visually impaired,

not the fact that I have this syndrome
that nobody knows what it is.

So I told myself
I'm going to work my butt off

and do whatever I could
to make myself better,

because in my mind, the best way
that I could get back at all those people

who made fun of me, who teased me,

who called me ugly,
who called me a monster

was to make myself better,
and to show them:

You know what?

Tell me those negative things,

I'm going to turn them around,

and I'm going to use them as a ladder

to climb up to my goals.

That's what I did.

I told myself that I wanted
to be a motivational speaker,

I wanted to write a book,

graduate college, have my own family,
and have my own career.

Eight years later,
I’m standing in front of you,

still doing motivational speaking.

First thing, I accomplished it.

I wanted to write a book;
in a couple of weeks

I will be submitting
the manuscript for my third book.

(Applause)

I wanted to graduate college,
and I just finished college.

(Cheers and applause)

I'm getting a degree
in Communication Studies

from Texas State University in San Marcos,

and I have a minor in English.

I really, really tried to use
real-life experience

while I was getting my degree,
and my professors were not having it.

I wanted to have, lastly,
my own family and my own career.

The family part is kind of down the line,
and my career part,

I feel like I'm really doing well with it,
considering the fact that

when I decided I wanted to be
a motivational speaker, I went home,

I sat in front of my laptop,
went to Google, and typed in:

"How to be a motivational speaker."

(Laughter)

I'm not even joking.

I worked my butt off.
I used the people who were telling me

that I couldn't do this
to motivate me.

I used their negativity
to light my fire to keep going.

Use that. Use that.
Use that negativity

that you have in your life
to make yourself better,

because I guarantee you -

guarantee you -

You will win.

Now I want to end, with asking you again.

I want you to leave here,
and ask yourself what defines you.

But remember:

Brave starts here.

Thank you.

(Applause)